The Independent National Whistleblowing Officer team held the first ever Speak Up Week on 3 – 7 October 2022. The week was an opportunity for NHS Boards in Scotland to engage staff about the benefits of speaking up and the difference it can make. It was also a fantastic way to raise awareness about the local arrangements for speaking up in individual Boards and to promote the role of Confidential Contacts.
We worked with NHS Boards across Scotland to help them develop ideas for events and activities that they could do to engage their staff with the benefits of speaking up. We developed resources that Boards could use during Speak Up Week as well as curating our own week of activities. These resources and a roundup of our activities can be found on our Speak Up Week page.
Two key learnings
Following Speak Up Week, we kept in touch with NHS Boards to collate different approaches taken in the organisation of activities and who was involved. This was really insightful for us and we learned a lot which will help us build on our Speak Up Week planning in 2023. Overall, there were two key takeaways for us for future Speak Up Week's:
- Our communications about Speak Up Week should go to the Liaison Officers within Boards rather than the Whistleblowing Champions or Confidential Contacts. The Liaison Officers can co-ordinate the preparations within Boards, involving the relevant people.
- Some Boards had great success using a working group to organise their Speak Up Week. These groups were made up of whistleblowing staff (Whistleblowing Champions, Confidential Contacts and Whistleblowing Leads) and staff side representatives, equalities groups and communications colleagues. Not only did this ease the burden on Confidential Contacts and others but it lead to some interesting and creative ideas.
Outreach and engagement
We were delighted to see a huge level of engagement on social media for Speak Up Week. #SpeakUpWeek was used 119 times over the week on Twitter and over 23 NHS Boards and organisations got involved to tweet their support, including Humza Yousaf, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care.
We also heard a lot of positive feedback from Boards highlighting events and activities they led on during Speak Up Week. These included a range of staff communications and digital engagement, senior leadership engagement, and events and outreach activities.
For example, Boards promoted Speak Up Week in newsletters, daily shout outs, blog posts and podcasts. Some even created videos helping to promote general information on speaking up and reflections on Speak Up Week. Others launched targeted campaigns and provided toolkits for staff to support them in speaking up or raising concerns. We also saw Boards promoting the INWO training available on Turas and sharing information with staff on their local Confidential Contacts.
Engagement from Senior Leadership was greatly appreciated by many of the Boards we spoke to. Some senior leaders chose to send a staff message or attend drop in sessions to get behind Speak Up Week. Others starred in videos featuring conversations between themselves and Whistleblowing Champions.
And finally, many of the Boards hosted outreach events and activities during Speak Up Week. These included Q&A events with confidential contacts or other staff involved in the whistleblowing process, information stands, staff presentations and surveys. One great idea we heard about was a promotional event for doctors in training to highlight the benefits of speaking up to a group at an early stage of their career. Click here to view a full list of the activities and events that took place as well as links to resources and videos produced by some of the Boards during Speak Up Week (PDF, 159KB).
Preparing for 2023
All the conversations we have had so far and the feedback we have received suggests Speak Up Week 2022 was a resounding success. However, we are keen to learn and improve how we support Boards next year for Speak Up Week. We will use the outcomes from this year to put in place a more detailed support package of resources and ideas that we will share with Boards as we plan for Speak Up Week 2023.
If you were involved in Speak Up Week 2022 and would like to let us know how it went, please get in touch at [email protected].